Revenge

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14

Luke 9:51-62

We struggle with the idea of offering a forgiveness that goes all the way that Jesus asks us to take it.  It is hard for us to do, hard for us to imagine, and hard for us to even justify in our own lives.    While we are told that Christians will be known by their love (and that includes and is best manifest, perhaps, in our forgiveness), we don’t do forgiveness very well.  We don’t act loving in this way, we don’t live it and no more is this the case when it comes to forgiveness. 

We want life to be fair.  Of course, we do.  We all want life to be fair.  I am not the exception here.  I want life to be fair too.  And when we are personally impacted, or when people we love are personally impacted, the desire for revenge, rather than the impulse to forgive, can be great.

I think about some of the injustices that I’ve experienced that have really rankled within me.  One example: when I received my doctorate, my congregation at the time wanted to buy me a doctoral robe to honor that.  I went to a place that specializes in clergy robes.  I had picked out from their website when I wanted and went in with the measurements and exact specifications.  They rang it up, charged me the first installment of the robe and I went merrily on my way.  A month later they called and said they no longer made that robe, but they had one that was similar.  They informed me that it didn’t come in my size, it was not the style that I wanted, and I would have to take it to a tailor or seamstress to have it completely altered, taken in, changed.  Of course I said, “no way”.  I had paid for the robe I had ordered.  If I could not have that robe, I wanted a refund.  They refused the refund. 

Okay.  Breathe.

When we were in the process of selling our first house in San Leandro, we were in contract with a family who, at the last minute, 29 days into the 30 day pre-closing period, pulled out.  According to the contract, if they pulled out after a certain date, we were entitled to keep their “good faith” payment of $5000.  But they took us to small claims court and lied through their teeth about what we had failed to do for them concerning the house.  I was so caught off guard by the lies that I did not do a good job and defending myself or what we had done, so we lost the $5000.  The housing market crashed right after that and we were unable to sell our house for another 6 months, which meant carrying two mortgages for that time period.

Breathe again.

As many of you know, when we moved across the country to come to this church, the moving company lost much of our stuff including my daughter’s bed, some large and expensive yard tools, a wagon, a table that had been handbuilt for me by a friend, and to this day I am still finding things that we no longer have because of that move.  The company would not listen to our complaints and never found or paid us for the missing items.

Breathe once more. 

All of these things, from an outside perspective may seem small.  They may seem petty.  We survived carrying two mortgages.  We have been able to replace most of the lost items that the moving company lost.  I did eventually get a robe from a different company, which was a gift anyway and didn’t end up costing us very much.  I have a home and we are fine.  Those things that happened to us were small things in the big scheme of things.  And yet still, it was hard to let go of my desire for all of these people to experience what I experienced in the stress over money, the confusion over lies and unkindnesses, the loss of faith in humanity that I experienced.  Did any of these people EVER think of us again?  I’m certain they did not.  They took what they took and never thought about it again.  On the other hand, I thought of them daily for many months, and was filled with anger and the desire for them to experience what I had experienced each and every time. 

We want life to be fair.  And when people hurt us we want them to suffer as we are.  We want revenge, plain and simple. 

Of course, our faith calls us to something different.  “Vengeance is mine” saith the Lord.  Three times we find this in scripture.  Romans 12:19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the LORD.

Deuteronomy 32:35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them."

Hebrews 10:30 For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The LORD will judge his people."

But we don’t trust that, do we?  We don’t trust it because we see people getting away with all kinds of stuff, all the time. 

But Jesus is clear, too.  Matthew 5: 38-47: You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.  Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

This is echoed in 1 Peter 3:9 : Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

And all of this is well and good.  Except we don’t take any of it with any kind of seriousness.  But Jesus lived by what he said and in today’s passage we see that. 

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.  And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him;  but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”  But Jesus turned and rebuked them.  Then he and his disciples went to another village.

We see it again when he is being arrested and the soldiers come to take him away.  The disciple cuts off the soldier’s ear and Jesus, in contrast to his disciples, heals the ear.  He even declares forgiveness from the cross for those who have crucified him. 

And maybe, we say, well, that’s Jesus.  That’s not real for us.  I know most Christians feel this way.  It is people of faith who encouraged me to sue in each of the three cases I described earlier.  And I’ll tell you the truth, it wasn’t that I didn’t sue because of my faith, but rather because of a lack of time and resources to do so. 

But as Christians we are to be known by our love.  By our radical, different, outstanding and clear LOVE.  And that means responding to the injustices of this life with compassion.  And that means responding to hatred with love.  This means not seeking revenge, but responding to unkindness with forgiveness. 

There was a news story out about a year ago of a woman who was in a drive-in line at a McDonald’s buying lunch for her kids when the man in line behind her starting yelling racist slurs at her and her children.  He was awful in his language, and this was heard by the woman’s children and was upsetting to all of them.  But instead of responding with anger, she chose better.  She bought the man’s lunch and asked the cashier to give him a note that she wrote that said, “I am not the words that you threw at me or my children.  I forgive you.  Have a good lunch.” 

I’m certain you have all read in the news over the last couple years about congregations that have forgiven shooters.  In particular the African American congregation in Charleston forgave, in a very public way, at the trial of the shooter, the man who killed so many in their congregation.  As the News story wrote it,

“The relatives of people slain inside the historic African American church in Charleston, S.C., were able to speak directly to the accused gunman Friday at his first court appearance.

One by one, those who chose to speak at a bond hearing did not turn to anger. Instead, while he remained impassive, they offered him forgiveness and said they were praying for his soul, even as they described the pain of their losses.

“I forgive you,” Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, said at the hearing, her voice breaking with emotion. “You took something very precious from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul.”

Last week I shared a story of Jesuit Priest Gregory Boyle wrote in the introduction his book, Tattoos on the Heart, about a woman who had lost two sons to gun violence praying for the life of the shooter when he was brought into the hospital, also as a result of gun violence.  Father Boyle said this, “If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives.  William Blake wrote, ‘We are put on earth for a little peace that we might learn to bear the beams of love.’.. We’re just trying to learn how to bear the beams of love.” (p xiii).

We believe it is hard not to strike back at those who hit us.  We believe that it is only saints who do this.  Many others believe it is only weak people, or scared people, or foolish people who fail to seek revenge. 

But as Paul tells us, in 1^st Corinthians 4: 10, we are called to be Fools for Christ: living out what others see as impossible, as unlikely, as unpractical.

Father Elias Chacour shared in his book Blood Brothers (p177) about his work with a congregation in Israel/Palestine that was torn with internal strife and hatred.  He had tried to reconcile them again and again but was unable to do so.  Finally, on Palm Sunday, he chose to do something outrageous.  He locked the doors so that those in the church could not leave at the end of the worship service and he said to them. “You are a people divided.  You argue and hate each other – gossip and spread malicious lies.  What do (those who are not Christian) think when they see you?  Surely that your religion is false.  If you can’t love your brother than you see, how can you say you love God who is invisible?  You have allowed the body of Christ to be disgraced.”

He invited them to sit in silence, asking for God to bring healing and forgiveness to his congregation.  After he finished speaking, they all sat in silence for a long time.  Chacour continues, "No one flinched.  My breathing had become shallow and I swallowed hard.  Surely I've finished everything, I chastised myself, undone all these months of hard work with my... then a sudden movement caught my eye. Someone was standing... With his first words, I could scarcely believe that this was the same hard-bitten policeman who had treated me so brusquely.  "I am sorry, "he faltered.  All eyes were on him.  "I am the worst one of all.  I've hated my own brothers.  Hated them so much I wanted to kill them.  More than any of you I need forgiveness."  And then he turned to me, "Can you forgive me, too, Abuna?"  He continued by describing a community that not only forgave one another but went out to the larger community, door to door, asking for forgiveness, and offering it in kind.

These are humans, transformed by their choice to forgive, transformed by their commitment to follow Love all the way, to follow Christ all the way.

 It is easy for us to want and even act in revenge.  It is easy for us to respond with anger.  But, as with everything that God asks us to do, God asks us to forgive not for the other, but for ourselves.  Do you want to be houses of hate and anger?  Or do you want love to rule in your hearts?  When love rules you are more whole, healthier, freer.  The call to forgive is not easy.  But it is part of our call to love and cannot be separated out.  We are called to take seriously that vengeance is God’s and we are invited instead to step into the deep and full living, letting go of anger, and choosing joy and peace instead, that is ours.